Skill Order

Champion Matchups

Introduction

Background Info

I play a lot of supposedly "unconventional mid champions" mostly in solo queue. I'm certainly no Froggen, but I'm generally successful with the builds that I use and the champions that I play. To me, any champion can compete in the mid-lane, whether it be Leona, Taric, Nocturne, Irelia, or Whomever. In fact, i'm working on creating builds for all the unconventional mid champs I play. The builds that I produce work for me, and are built around my needs and philosophy as a player. My entire build may not work for you, or parts may not. If that's the case, then adjust the build to your needs and tell me about it. I'm always interested in learning different build ideas. I've played over a hundred games with mid alistar and have a very positive win rate. over those games, I've adjusted this build to the point where it is perfect for me.

I stream a lot of LoL games that I practice these unconventional mids. Come watch if you'd like to see:
http://www.twitch.tv/nickyaco

Runes

Like I said previously, i create these builds based upon my needs as a player.

I go with AD reds, Mana Regen yellows, Flat MR blues, and AP quints.

Let me explain myself:

READ THIS FIRST RIGHT NOW!
When I speak of "harassing" your enemy as Alistar, i simply mean this. You Q, then W them in the opposite direction. At this point you E, for the extra effects it gives you. Post 6 you can ult as well for extra damage and tankiness in case you want to dive.

AD marks(reds)
I bring these runes because with a base AD of 59, I have trouble last hitting creeps early on. You have to think of this from the perspective of an AD-Carry rather than an AP-Carry. Most AP carries have an ability that helps them kill creeps at a low base mana cost (i.e. karthus, lux, annie, etc). Well, on Alistar that's not the case. With AP-mid Alistar, you're going to be using your abilities to harass, and hopefully catch the enemy out of position. Your Q & W can be used to catch the enemy looking and knock them into tower when they try to harass. Also with the major cooldowns on Ali's abilities, and how his ablities cost a lot of mana, you can't use them to last hit. And I don't know about you, but killing creeps with 59 ad is difficult for me. If you're an adcarry or an ad top, can you last hit effectively with 59 ad? It would take a lot of getting used to. Bringing these reds and quints allows you to have around a base AD of 65-68 depending on if you make any changes. I know what you're thinking..."THAT'S A LOT OF AD TO USE FOR AN AP MID AND LAST HITTING! AND BESIDES, YOU'RE JUST BUILDING FOR EARLY GAME?!!! YOU SCRUBNEWB!!!!" Well in this case..yes, you are building pure early game AD for last hitting and damage after you harass the enemy while your abilities are on cooldown.

Mana Regen Seals(yellows)
I bring these runes because Alistar is a very mana heavy champion. In the mid lane against a ranged mage, you're going to be spamming E A LOT to counter their harass. And you still need harass of your own. These runes really apply to times when you're not receiving mana regen from the blue buff that your jungler should give you. To survive, you're going to have to be able to E many times early, until you get your tanky items.

Magic Resist Glyphs(blues)
I bring these runes obviously because generally you're against an AP champion and you need some kind of way to survive from their damagey-goodness besides the health from your E. However, if you're against an AD bruiser like Lee or Zed, I'd recommend having an alternate rune page with armor glyphs instead.

Flat AP quints
When I first started playing mid alistar, i brought AD marks and Quints. Both for the same purpose of last hitting because i had trouble at first. Over time, i practice and became accustomed to last hitting with just AD marks. You bring the AP quints for some damage added to your passive trample, Q, and W early. The AP from the quints adds to what you receive from your masteries.

Masteries

The 21/0/9 mastery setup that I use basically ensures that apart from my AP quints, I still have some Ability Power, as well as some extra cooldown reduction. 9 points that I run down the utility tree add to my mana regen and mana per level. Like previously stated, Alistar is a very mana heavy champion and requires a great supply of it to succeed in the mid lane. Also, though a little amount, the extra .5 or 1 gold per 10 seconds (depending on the customization of your master page) can help you out greatly if you end up behind, believe it or not.

Summoner Spells

&

Explanation:

Explanation:

You bring flash because with your base move speed plus boots of mobility, twin shadows, and lich bane..ghost is a waste.

Explanation:

You bring ignite simply because after you combo, you autoattack. Ignite combos well with the autoattacks, and does that little bit of extra damage to kill.

IN SOME CASES:

Explanation:

I forgot to stress this more than I did. Mid Alistar is built to roam and help other lanes win decisively. However you have to be in your lane to farm and gain more experience than you would by ripping off other lanes. You can use this as a great utility to help other lanes and return to yours quicker.

ALSO IN SOME CASES:

Explanation:

I've really thought about replacing ignite with this. But I've tried it both ways and honestly it's a case of personal preference. I prefer ignite, because when I mid alistar... I play very aggressive. And Ignite does a better job of finishing off opponents. Clarity sure does refill your mana, but you won't have any extra damage to add to autoattacks after your abilities are on cooldown.

But i will say: "IF YOU ARE GOING TO PLAY PASSIVE, BRING CLARITY RATHER THAN IGNITE."

Skills

Passive: Trample

Explanation:

Aside from your early AD, trample is what helps you win trades. When you're in a trade with the enemy, and you E...The passive trample will help you win the fight when you're about dead. simple as that.

Q: Pulverize

Explanation:

Pulverize is a vital part of your initiation combo. Whether you initiate with Q then W or vice versa, This is the main part of your damage output.

W: Headbutt

Explanation:

Like Pulverize, Headbutt is even more of a vital part of your initiation combo.

E: Triumphant Roar

Explanation:

This is the self heal that assists you when you're in a trade. Your Triumphant Roar is what you use to proc your passive more often than anything.

R: Unbreakable Will

Explanation:

This is what makes you who you are. The tanky, damagey, awesome Cow that you are. This gives you extra AD, and makes you take reduced damage for 7 seconds. It does not reduce true damage though that may come from an ignite, so don't accidentally ult while ignited.

Skill Order

I max this first, because his W is his most damaging ability. In other words, his W does more damage than other one of his abilities.

I max this second, because Ali's Q is where his CC comes from. It's not supposed to be his main damage ability. In Teamfights, you Q them up when they're clumped and knock away the enemy's most fed champion. Sure this works when initiating 1v1, but at max rank, it doesn't do nearly as much damage as Alistar's headbutt.

I max this third, because you gain self heal by .2 for each point of AP. Alistar's E will do more late than it does early.

Obviously you want points in this at 6/11/16. Though not really an AP damage dealer, Alistar's ultimate is arguably his strongest ability, damage-wise. At rank 1, it gives Alistar +60 AD, removes all CC, and reduces incoming damage on alistar by 50%. When you initiate on the enemy, this is the lifesaver that keeps you going when you're out of mana and it's an autoattack war.

Item Builds

As Mid Alistar, your main job is to dominate your lane, and roam. Say Top lane is getting shit on, well it's your job to roam and help him out. Let your jungler sit back and farm. He needs CS too. ALSO if you're behind, roaming is a great way to catch up. Get 6 assists from roaming TOP/BOT is the equivalent of getting 3 kills. That should help you greatly. Gets your top and ADC fed, and you end up with enough gold to get back in it.

Items and Explanations (not build order):

I go with the boots of mobility simply because it gives you more roam and chase potential. Plus, without boots of mobility, it's a necessity to bring ghost on mid alistar. Boots of mobility cancel out the ghost and allow you to exchange it for another summoner spell (ignite, clarity, tp, etc).

Twin shadows is one of the main items that allows you to survive, score in lane, and easily CC opponents early on through roam. It's also the cheapest item that you will build.

It provides you with enough damage (40 AP + 15-20 starting AP from runes) to outdamage your enemy early on in lane into the mid game, in which you complete more items.

It provides you with +6% move speed stacked onto the possible boots of mobility. It also supplies an active which summons ghosts that give sight and slow by 40% for a short duration. Both of these come in handy when:

A. chasing an opponent, who just so happens to have those easy mode escapes :)
B. being chased by opposing ganks that you may not have caught.

Rod of ages is in a way a catalyst for your build. It will assist you most during the late early game into mid game.

Alistar is a very mana heavy champion. Alistar is also a very tanky champion. Given that he's naturally tanky in fights with his ultimate, it's great to have some defensive stats on the side.

Also the Ability Power supplied increases Ali's Self heal Active (E) as well as his damage abilities.

Rod of ages is also good because it gives you and your jungler a bit of a cushion. With the mana that is obtained through rod of ages, if you play smart, you may be able to sacrifice all future blue buffs past the first 2-3. This allows your jungler to take an additional buff and gain more gold, XP, and modify his jungle rotations.

Lich Bane is a strong side item because it supplies additional move speed, total mana, and Ability Power.

Again this adds even more of a cushion between you and your jungler in a sense. The total mana allows you to pass the blue buffs onto either your jungler or another carry at this point in the game.

The Passive Proc on the Lich Bane (after spell cast, next basic attack deals bonus magic damage equal to 50 + 75% of your Ability Power) is great going along with your combo. Alistar is a mid laner that relies heavily upon autoattacks in engages. This has a 2 second cooldown which is more than enough time for you proc it around 2 times during engages.

Sunfire cape is a strong late game item because of it's passive assistance during engages, but also because of the heal and armor stats. Sunfire is the go-to fifth item if you're ahead and the enemy team currently has any fed ad champions, this is a must have.

45 Armor gives you the strength to make it to the back line, believe it or not. This is always not the case. During teamfights, if you have a support like Thresh, janna, Leona that has easy peel and can keep anyone and everyone off of your carries, then by God this is your opportunity. You have enough tankiness to jump through the enemy front line and get some good damage off meanwhile interrupting a possible ultimate by the enemy carry.

A passive that deals 40 magic damage per seconds to nearby enemies is never a bad thing. Chances are the enemy carry is going to have no tankiness and is going to rely on peel to save their life. Passive sunfire damage supplies you with more than your base combo damage and allows for a nice extra bit of damage.

Ah yes! Say that enemy Rumble is 27-4 and your 2-23 teemo ragequit. You can still compete and not even replace that ragequitting boyscout. Just build one of these Spirit Visage Thingys. If the enemy AP is fed as all hell, then skip the sunfire cape. Spirit Visage provides you with more tankiness to dodge those abilities in teamfights.

+50 Magic Resist is always good especially for tanking the front line aoe abilities combo'd with your ultimate.

+200 hp just adds to your tankiness and awesomeness. need i say more?

+20% Cooldown Reduction is great on Alistar. His cooldowns are so terribly long. This is the main reason why he relies so much on his autoattacks for a very large chunk of his damage.

The Passive +20% of regen all around is also great stacked onto your E self heal.

This is a lot more situational than Sunfire cape. because of the next item in this list that also supplies damage and Magic Resist.

Generally this is what takes the place of the Spirit Visage. It supplies enough magic resist for you to be tanky enough. Like previously stated, spirit visage is more situational, and generally relies upon the enemy AP being SUPER fed.

Provides enough Magic Resist to combo with armor and HP from sunfire and other items.

Supplies you with a wee bit of extra damage that just strengthens your combo in teamfights, while making you even more incredibly tanky combo'd with your ultimate.

The aura passive that reduces enemy Magic Resist by 20 combos so well with you. Then again, how can making the enemy feel more of your damage on their health bars not combo well with anyone.

When you're behind

When you're behind you still rush a Twin Shadows. When you're behind as Mid Alistar, you roam and build as if you're supporting. This is stressed more in the other chapters.

After that, however, you want to rush a Will of the Ancients. When you're behind as alistar, the last thing you want to do is try and build so much freaking damage like you would if you were ahead. If you're behind, you want to end up building a little bit of damage, but majority tank and tanky aura items.

Which brings me to my next item:

Shurelya's is a good item on any support. Simply put, any item that builds out of a kindlegem is a good item on a support. This again just brings so much to the table. The active AOE speed boost, health, and all around regen just make it. Also it's good because it builds out of a philo which supplies extra gold per 10 when you're behind.

Basically if you're behind as Alistar mid, you must build almost exactly like you would as a support alistar. You want to be able to CC the enemy and help your teammates get kills as much as possible.

Early Game

There are two styles of playing mid alistar. Allow me to explain each.

Method 1: Basically this is the more lane-aggressive mid alistar method. It does not always work as well as the second method, but it is my favorite. Basically pre-6 you try to outdamage, kill, and send the enemy back as much as possible. You then push out the lane, go back, rinse and repeat. Post-6 is when you start to roam in and out until the end of laning phase. This generally gives you about a good solid 10 minutes of roam time before someone gets their first big item, or something causes the end of laning phase.

Method 2: This second method is the more roam-aggressive mid alistar method. This is the method that generally will have a greater success rate, but depending upon how you do, you may have less gold, and become more underleveled. This is the "no matter what level I am, I push lane out and roam" method. Starting at level 1, you push your lane as fast as possible to the point that the enemy is last hitting under their tower, and you try to deny them as much as possible without killing them unless they really REALLY overextend. Anyway, after you push out your lane, you leave lane, take the most concealed route, and gank other lanes to put your team ahead. When you roam as alistar mid with this method, you start with a gank top. You begin your roam at around 2:40-3:00 minutes, just around when your jungler(if he starts blue buff) will be taking his red on the other side of the jungle. If your jungler follows the choreographed route, at this point he'll probably gank bottom through the tri brush. Leaving your top laner susceptible to the same thing from the opposite jungler. I love when the enemy jungler tries to counter-gank your first roam-gank, because as alistar with an early-damage top (Lee Sin, Renekton, Kha'Zix, etc) you will never lose this countergank. You and your top lane will always come out on top. No matter who the enemy jungler is, whether it be Xin, J4, or any other currently strongest jungler in the world, Alistar has the CC and early AD(with my build anyway) to CC the enemy and separate them as well. All the mean time while you're autoattacking one, and your laner is focusing them down with you. After a successful gank, you just walk your cow ass back to mid-lane and push it out again. If the enemy top overpursues again, leave it to your jungler this time. He should be on the route at wolves getting ready to counterjungle or gank top anyway. At which point, you push the lane out and head bottom through your jungle. You gank bot through lane waiting for the enemy to make a mistake, while stealing XP from your adc and support. This gank generally doesn't work as well at first, because you normally become visible at some point due to enemy ward coverage and map control. If it doesn't work, don't fret. Just pick it up, head back mid lane, push the lane out, and repeat this whole method.

***HOWEVER*** If the whole "push out the lane" thing isn't working, and you're taking tower harass from the enemy(he's attacking your tower) then you need to quit the roaming immediately and protect your lane. The point of the pushing out lane and roaming thing is to keep the enemy mid laner in lane, and set him back. If he pushes out and takes your tower, then you leave your laners susceptible to roam from him. You've got to keep him in lane at the cost of roaming. If he's counter-roaming, push the lane out and bring him back to lane.

Mid Game

So early game, you spent like a million years roaming (hyperbole intended). Unless you're positively awesome, I think anyone would expect you to miss out on a fair bit of CS. Now is indeed the time to try and make up for that as much as you possibly can. Hopefully you've done your job and pushed the lane repeatedly enough that your tear 1 turret still has generally more than half of its health left. Basically you must consider this time your farm time. Generally mid game, commonly post lane phase, you may very well be behind about 10-20 cs. Don't fret, it's okay. It happens sometimes. Now is where you make your move and narrow that gap. Given you tried to push the wave to the enemy turret early game, some people are great at pushing it out and freezing the lane while missing minimal cs. A lot of times this isn't the case, and you're semi ahead. Honestly, it just depends upon the mechanical skill of the enemy mid. In either case, have no fear. In fact, if one of these cases listed is occurring, then you're doing your job correctly for the most part. You get 3 gold stars :).
At this point, just try your best to either narrow the gap or expand your lead.

If you're losing in CS, then read this next sentence as if you're listening closely. Push the lane out as much as possible like early game, and filter on over to your wraith camp. By now, your jungler should be counterjungling to the point that he's okay with you taking wraiths. The concept of this is to continue trying to deny your enemy as much creep as you possibly can, meanwhile trying to catch up yourself. If your jungler is behind and protesting that you're taking his wraiths then stay tuned, or skip down several lines.

If you're ahead in Creep Score, then do as follows. Freeze the lane! You may not believe nor understand my reasoning with this. I don't care if you do or don't, just trust me here and give it a shot. Allow me to explain myself. At this point, if you can freeze the lane while ahead, you can probably force the enemy out of lane to the point that you can expand your lead, while denying them a substantial amount of creep. Just keep forcing them out of lane.

If you're behind, and your jungler opposes you taking his wraith camp, then do as follows. It is your job at this point to be the counterjungler without being the jungler. You follow all the steps shown above on how to to compete when behind. However, every time you go back...By a ward, or a few wards. Place them at the enemy wraith camp, one after another. every time those wraiths are up and you know that you can take them safely, you make a bee-line straight to that wraith camp. Afterwards, you march your cow self back to mid lane, rinse and repeat. You're assisting your jungler, your team, and allowing yourself to catch up a bit.

**An Extra Tidbit!**
you can also buy wards, oracles, and consumables, whether you're ahead or behind. Just a case of if you want to, or if your team needs help in those areas. You've got to serve your team as a utility, rather than just a damage dealer. Say your support puts wards at drag and the adjacent jungle. I'd consider it your responsibility to buy 2-3 wards and give your team some map control around baron pit and the adjacent side of that jungle as well.

Late Game

Alistar's late game is the equivalent of his mid game. Laning phase has been over for more than a while and you're trying to farm it out and get some gold. You must continue to serve your team as a utility, described in the previous chapter. Wards are your best friend before you hit full build. It's also smart to invest in defensive wards rather than just offensive wards. Contrary to popular belief, if Alistar gets caught out, it's very difficult for him to make it out un-assisted.

Team Fights

In team fights, your job is to CC the enemy, headbutt the most fed carry on the enemy team, and autoattack, while healing yourself and your team from your E's active. you knock up the opposite team with your Pulverize(Q), and like previously stated...headbutt(W) the most fed carry on the opposite team and try to keep them out of the fight, while also peeling the enemies off of your carries. Basically your team-fight presence is like that of a support alistar, except this time you can do some damage to back it up!

Counterpicks FOR and AGAINST:

Alistar certainly isn't the best mid champ in the game. However if played correctly, he can compete with most champs in mid lane. notice I said most. Here's the list of counters that I've come up with in my experience of mid Alistar.

Alistar mid is the strongest against:

Key: Number of designates the strength of the counter pick. Max of 5 being the strongest

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Alistar mid is the weakest against:

Key: Number of designates how weak Alistar is against the pick. Max of 5 being the weakest.

@donkeyhacks: "The builds that I produce work for me, and are built around my needs and philosophy as a player. My entire build may not work for you, or parts may not. If that's the case, then adjust the build to your needs and tell me about it. I'm always interested in learning different build ideas."

It works the way you've suggested too. Sure, an extra minute per blue buff is great as well. You're correct in your thinking. The Only reason I opt to go for a quick point in greed is because it stacks up more and more with the amount of roam you do. When I go mid Alistar, I generally prefer to go for the support-esque path labeled here as behind. If you do the math of a 40 minute game, you'll have stacked up (including kage's + Philo for 20 or 25 minutes until twin shadows completed and shurelya's reverie as well) it's 600(kages) + 900(Philo stone) + 120(greed mastery. That comes out to an extra nearly 1700 gold overall. Again, it's suited to my needs and style as a player. I like to go supporty with mid Alistar, buy oracles, extra wards and what not, and serve as a bigger utility later on.

I'd encourage you to read over the guide again, rather than just shooting it down because of a difference in opinion. Give it a shot, it details more way than one and expanding to other options :)